When Leslie learns a video store is closing, she decides to have it declared a historical landmark so the owner can stay in business. Ron is opposed to the idea of the government bailing out a local business. Leslie's plan backfires in two ways: the owner decides to start carrying pornographic videos instead of the obscure arthouse filmes he carried before, and several other Pawnee businesses want bailouts as well.
April has decided to apply for admission to veterinary school, and she needs a recommendation. She asks Ann, but Ann only agrees to do it if April will hang out with her for a week. During the week, April tries to resist Ann's attempts at friendship, but when she realizes that something is going on with Ann and Chris, she gets Ann to tell her what it is. The two bond over the situation.
Tom's business is doing well, and he hires Jean-Ralphio's twin sister, Mona-Lisa, to be his assistant. However, he has trouble getting her to do any work. Chris, who is in the process of deciding whether or not to be Ann's sperm donor, decides to help Tom to test his own parenting abilities. However, when Tom takes Chris' advice to be strict with Mona-Lisa, she finds it hot and she and Tom become a couple. Chris feels terrible about his parenting abilities, but Jerry convinces him that all parents make mistakes but they just keep going. Chris decides to accept Ann's offer.
Tropes
- Actually Pretty Funny: Ron is vehemently against the government bailing out the video store, but once he discovers the owner used it to start carrying pornographic films, he finds it hysterical.
- Allegory: The Wall Street bailout is satirized when Leslie wants the government to save a failing video store.
- Bittersweet Ending: Leslie's plan to save the Videodome goes up in flames when the owner turns it into a phonography store against her wishes. However, she's able to start a weekly movie night program at the community center so the town will still have a place where everyone can gather to watch and discuss films as she wanted.
- Distaff Counterpart: Mona-Lisa is essentially a female version of Jean-Ralphio, but taken up to eleven.
- Hard Truth Aesop: As Ron tells Leslie, government services and private businesses need to be kept separate because they run on different principles. Free market capitalism runs entirely on the concept of companies thriving when they profit and failing when they don't. If the marketplace evolves to a point where a business dies because of a lack of customers, it's best to let nature take its course.
- Hypocrite: Despite considering the Pawnee Videodome an important institution for film buffs, Leslie herself hardly, if ever, rents any of the movies the store carries:Leslie: Pawnee needs a place where the community can gather to discuss and appreciate art! A place where you can rent such films as Cinema Paradiso or Rashomon.
Ron: You rented Rashomon? What was your favorite part of that?
Leslie: ...I haven't rented it, actually, yet. But I like the idea that there is a place where I could rent Rashomon. - Insistent Terminology: Leslie repeatedly stresses that the video store isn't being given a "bailout", it's being given landmark status so it gets the encompassing tax break and that will allow the store to stay in business. Nobody buys it.
- Parallel Porn Titles: Brandi Maxxx's movie "Too Big to Nail" is a pun on the phrase "too big to fail"
. - Spoiled Brat: Mona-Lisa Sapirstein is a loud and obnoxious idiot with no work ethic and just wants easy money.
- The Friend Noone Likes: Normally this would be Jean-Ralphio, but according to him Mona-Lisa is "just the worst". Mona-Lisa, his sister.
